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Phillip and Margaret Buckley come to LA two weeks after Bobby’s funeral.
They’d been scheduled to come out to help with baby preparations, and in the messy aftermath of the lab and Chimney’s recovery and Bobby’s funeral, Maddie never canceled. Buck forgot entirely until Maddie called him, apologizing in hushed tones because they were already standing in her living room. She invites him to dinner at her house that night. Buck brings Tommy.
Tommy has barely left Buck’s side since the lab. He’s had shifts, and Buck has had shifts, but if they’re both off then they’re together. Tommy has even stopped by the station a few times to bring Buck coffee and check on him. They haven’t had a full conversation yet about what it means, about what they are, but Tommy had held Buck while he broke down that first night and told Buck he wasn’t going anywhere, that Buck had him, and so far that has been true. He comes when Buck calls and he doesn’t run away after. He kisses Buck and cooks for him and wraps around him when they sleep. He makes Buck feel less alone despite this gaping chasm that has been ripped down the center of his life.
Tommy has been a steady presence by Buck’s side through every terrible moment in the last few weeks, supporting him through every hardship. This one is no different. Buck says that his parents are in town and without missing a beat, Tommy asks what time they need to be at Maddie and Chimney’s.
Buck’s parents are getting better with each visit, Buck will give them that much. He thinks that they’re still going to therapy, and it shows. Each time they visit, there’s still the initial awkwardness, the first few minutes when Buck and Maddie both tense in expectation of criticism, but it never comes. There’s praise and comfort and actual helpfulness. It’s worlds away from how they grew up and it’s jarring in its sincerity.
When Buck and Tommy walk into the house, dinner is still being prepped. They’re not holding hands or anything, but there’s no mistaking that they’re still here together. Why else would Tommy come? Buck finds himself bracing for the third degree from his parents about the status of his and Tommy’s relationship, but it never comes. They welcome him with a hug and a handshake and ask how things are going. They even agree to call him Tommy instead of insisting on Thomas.
“Tommy, please,” Tommy says when Phillip tries to call him Thomas. “Thomas was my father, and trust me, you do not want him here.” Charming, defensive smile. Friendly but firm.
“Well, we understand a complicated family dynamic, don’t we? Tommy it is,” Phillip says. Like it was that easy to respect a nickname.
“Most of our gay friends have strained relationships with their families,” Margaret says, nodding in sympathy.
It’s not the worst thing she could have said—clearly she’s trying to be supportive—but Buck still cringes. And then he spirals.
What gay friends? he wonders. He doesn’t know anything about his parents’ lives, and he doesn’t know if that’s his fault for not asking or theirs for not telling or the fault of their grief for not nurturing the kind of parent-child relationship that would lead him to even be curious about what they’re up to when he’s not in the same room with them. All he knows is that even now, even though their relationship is better than it ever has been, there is a big blank space where Buck’s knowledge of his parents should be.
He knew Bobby’s friends. He knew when Bobby and Athena hung out with people outside of the 118, and he knew who those people were and how they knew each other. He knows more about Bobby’s past than he does about his own parents’, despite living in the same house as them for eighteen years of his life. He knew Bobby so well that he could mouth along to Bobby’s stories as he told them, and Bobby’s not here anymore but his parents are. His parents will meet Maddie and Chimney’s son but Bobby won’t—Chimney, who is only alive and cutting carrots on the island counter right now because of Bobby’s love, Bobby’s sacrifice; Chimney, who is putting on a braver face these days despite still drowning in guilt and grief over Bobby’s death himself, but not letting himself sink into it because Maddie made him swear he'd be here for his kids, that he wouldn't disappear into his grief the way their parents did.
Bobby deserved to meet Chimney’s son, and the unfairness of it all makes Buck want to stomp his foot like the toddler Jee-Yun isn’t anymore and fall on the floor and scream and bawl until someone fixes this, until someone brings Bobby back, until someone makes the world make sense again.
Tommy handles the comment well. He blinks, shrugs, says, “At least it’s better than it used to be,” and then he lets Jee drag him off to her room to show him a new plane that she got for her Barbies as a birthday present.
They disappear down the hall. Both of Buck’s parents turn towards him, Maddie and Chimney turn towards each other, and Buck can’t do this right now. He can’t meet anyone’s eye. There’s still something about talking about being queer that makes him itch, and Bobby wouldn’t have said something like that to Tommy’s face, and Bobby wouldn’t have even tried to call someone a name they didn’t introduce themselves by, and Bobby should be here because he’s part of the family, he is the family, he was-
Buck steps out onto the patio and shuts the door behind himself with shaking hands. He has been doing a little better every day, but the dam holding back the reservoir of his grief is overflowing right now. He hates this, hates feeling so emotional and out of control in front of his parents. It makes him feel like he’s a kid again, a reckless and angry child; like all of the therapy and healing he has done in the last decade or so is coming undone, like all the progress he has made is dead in the ground with Bobby.
In his grief, Buck has never understood his parents more. He could disappear into this. He could drown in this so easily. He misses Bobby so much that he could let it define himself, his life, his future. It's so big and it hurts so much that Buck almost wonders if he can even choose not to let it swallow him whole.
He sits down on the end of a lounge chair and takes deep breaths. He can. He can choose. He’s better than this. Bobby would want him to be better than this. Bobby told him he would be okay.
Bobby would want Buck to move forward, and to let his parents try to do better; to see them, see their flaws, and meet them with a sense of understanding, if not quite forgiveness. In his last months, Bobby accepted his own mother and brother back into his life. It would have been so easy and so understandable for him not to, but he did it anyway. It wasn’t water under the bridge—Bobby’s neck had been stiff for weeks after—but it was an invitation to create more positive memories together in the future. They wouldn’t outweigh the bad memories, but they would sit side-by-side with them and be equally true.
That’s what Bobby wanted for himself. That’s what Bobby would want for Buck. That’s what Buck wants for himself, too—what he’s wanted for years. Not to forgive, not to forget, but to build. To move forward and keep trying to do better. He wonders if he ever would have gotten to that point without Bobby’s guidance. He’ll never know. Bobby feels knit into his bones at this point, into his every reaction.
That’s why he misses him so much. Bobby was so much a part of him, so integral to his being. Buck feels like he lost more than a captain, a friend, a father figure: he feels like he lost a part of himself.
Now isn’t the time to mourn. His parents are here to celebrate the new baby. That’s what Buck wants to do, too. He wants to focus on the future, on what he’s about to gain, not on what he just lost. Buck sits still, breathes in and breathes out, and soon each breath comes out a little less shuddering than the last.
He’s almost breathing evenly again when the door opens. He looks up, expecting to see Tommy, but instead he sees his father step out. Phillip flashes a tight smile in greeting as he closes the door behind him, and Buck nods in recognition. He tries not to be disappointed.
“Are you alright?” Phillip asks.
Buck laughs a sad, wet laugh. He shrugs. “Not, uh, not- not really.”
“Was it your mother…?”
If only. “No, she’s- no. She’s trying. She’s fine. I just- sometimes it all washes over me again and I- I just miss him, that’s all. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t… He’s been gone for a few weeks now and it feels like- like-”
It feels like a lifetime. It feels like two seconds. It feels like the world has ended and like reality has stopped. It feels like he’s just in the other room.
Phillip walks over and sits down next to Buck. He wraps an arm around Buck’s shoulder, and it’s one of a handful of times that Buck can ever remember his father trying to comfort him when he wasn’t bleeding.
“Sorry,” Buck says reflexively.
Phillip rubs his hand up and down Buck’s arm. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“I’m not trying to- I’m not trying to get attention or anything. I just…” Buck shakes his head and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. They’re damp but not wet. Buck has cried more in the last few weeks than he has in his entire life. There’s nothing left.
“I had a neighbor growing up,” Phillip says after a moment. “Mr. Fischer. He was a teacher a few towns over. History teacher. I thought he was the most boring man in the world for years. But my father was in the air force, and his son was in the navy, and they were both overseas more often than not at that time, even before we were officially at war, so I had to go help him out a few times a month. Actually, I- I don’t know if I ever told you that—that my dad wasn’t around much because he was military.”
Buck shakes his head. The only thing he knew about his grandfather is that he’d been dead Buck and Maddie’s whole lives.
“Well, he was. So Mr. Fischer, he- he’d ask me to help him with stuff around the house and the yard and I always dreaded it. I’d try to sneak past his house so he wouldn’t call me in. Never worked, though. I wasn’t very sneaky. He’d always get me to pick up sticks or pull weeds or rearrange his bookshelves, and while I did it, he’d always lecture me about the world wars or ancient Rome and, you know, I was a kid, so I’d just tune him out. Then, one day, when I was probably, oh, seven or eight, he noticed I was really quiet. Quieter than usual. So he asked me if everything was okay, and of course it wasn’t. Some kids at school had really gotten under my skin about something, and he gave me some good advice about how to deal with them. I don’t remember what he said now, but the way he said it… that I remember. He made me feel like I was going to be okay. That assurance, that’s something my own father had never given me. Mr. Fischer wasn’t an emotional man, but he helped me process my feelings, helped me figure out how to work through my problems. My father—when he was home—he wasn’t like that. He was a- a disciplinarian. No idea how to handle emotions except for ignoring them. Or punishing them. And so after Mr. Fischer gave me that advice, I started looking at him differently. I started listening to him, to his lectures and his stories, and I asked him questions. We ended up getting really close. Pretty soon, I knew him better than I knew my own father, and I loved him more, too.” He takes a shaky breath. “When I was fourteen, my father died overseas. Heart attack, nothing- nothing combat related. Mr. Fischer tied my tie for the funeral and he held me when I cried. And then a year later, he died too. Cancer. He never told us he was sick, but I guess that’s why he needed my help so much. I just thought he was old.” He lets out a sad laugh.
“I’m sorry,” Buck says, a pang in his chest. “I never- I never knew any of that.”
“Well, I’m sorry I never told you any of that. I couldn’t… I became a teacher because of Mr. Fischer, but the rest of it… well, I’m afraid I took after my father with the rest of it. Maybe not the discipline, but- but I don’t deal with emotions well, mine or others’. I’m trying to do better with that these days, but I know that I- I let you down when you needed me. I know I left you with- with… well, what I’m trying to say is that I’m glad that Bobby- that Bobby stepped in for you. I only met him a few times, but he always reminded me of Mr. Fischer. He had such a calming presence, and it’s clear that he was a good influence on you. It’s okay to miss him. I’m just- I’m just glad that you had a good father figure, even if it wasn’t me. I know what it feels like to lose that. I know what it feels like to look up to someone, to rely on them for guidance, and then suddenly they’re just- just gone. So I know how lost you must feel right now without him. I just want you to know that it’s okay to mourn him in front of us. He gave you something we couldn’t, and that’s on us, not you. I’ll go to my grave regretting the way we raised you, and I’ll go to my grave grateful to Bobby for helping you work through enough of what we left you with that you could accept us back into your life.”
Buck doesn’t know what to say. He has never heard his dad say this many words at once, nevermind be this vulnerable and acknowledge his failings head-on. Even when Buck was going to therapy with his parents, the sharing was always more one-sided than Buck wanted it to be—mostly him telling his parents how shitty and invisible he felt and his father taking it in stoically, his mother crying. They'd apologized but it wasn't enough. It helped, but it didn’t fix everything.
This was different. This was real, and obviously difficult for his dad to say, but he made himself do it anyway, for Buck’s benefit. Buck is a little stunned and more than a little touched. A small corner of that blank space where his knowledge of his parents should be fills in with clear lines and devastating color. It feels like opening a present that he’d long since given up hope of receiving.
“Thank you,” Buck manages. “I- I don’t really know what to say.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. Just- just remember that it’s okay to talk about him, to miss him. And- and remember that I’m here for you too, okay? Whether you need me or not, and maybe it’s too late, but I just- I just want you to know that.”
Still a little stunned, Buck nods. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
Phillip squeezes his arm around Buck’s shoulders. “Not that you need another person to talk to. You’ve built this big, beautiful life, with no shortage of people who support you. And Tommy- Tommy seems solid. He seems good for you. Speaking of, what, uh, what- what are you going by these days? Buck or Evan?”
There’s no edge to it, no passive aggression, no harm meant. Genuine curiosity. Wanting to do better.
Buck shrugs. “Either. Both. Everyone else still calls me Buck, but Tommy calls me Evan.”
“I noticed that.” Warm, smile-colored words.
“I like the way he says it,” Buck says softly, eyes on the stones of the patio floor. “I like the way it sounds coming from him. He makes me feel whole.”
Phillip is quiet for a moment. Buck isn’t sure if he’s offended or upset or just taking that in. He’s too afraid to look at his father and find out.
“I think that means something,” Phillip finally says. “If he says your name and you like it. If you can hear it and not think of- of us, of your childhood. I think that’s a good sign.”
“Yeah,” Buck agrees. “I’ve never thought of it like that, but yeah. I think it is. I’ve never- I’ve never hated being Evan, though.”
“No? You were pretty insistent that your mother and I call you Buck.”
“Yeah, that was- that was more about wanting you to see me. To see who I had become, who I was proud of becoming, and to meet me on my own terms. And you did. I- I think you do see me now. I’m just still getting used to that.”
Phillip squeezes his arm around Buck’s shoulder. “I see you, Evan. I see you and I- I am in awe of you. You are a great man, you really are. You’re stronger than I ever was, in every way. Maybe you don’t feel very strong right now, and that’s okay. You’re going through a lot. But you’re- I know that the great man you’ve become is more of a testament to Bobby than it is to me. I see that too, and I- I’m just grateful that he touched your life and helped you become who you were always meant to be.”
“Me too,” Buck says weakly.
“I love you, son,” Phillip says.
“I love you too,” Buck replies, and the unfairness of it pinches his chest.
This is something he has wanted to hear his whole life. Why did he have to lose another father figure before he could hear it? Why did he hear it from Bobby first? Why can he say it back now, when the words are true but shallow, and why couldn’t he say it when he really, deeply meant it? Why couldn’t he tell Bobby how much he loved him, how much Bobby changed him, how much Buck relied on the way Bobby took root in him and kept him propped upright in his worst moments?
It’s probably because he felt it too deeply when Bobby said it. Probably because it felt too much like a goodbye, and he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Bobby yet. He still isn’t.
But this isn’t a goodbye, now, with his father. It almost feels like a hello.
Buck doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know what to do with the swirl of conflicting emotions he’s feeling right now: the agony of loss and the joy of having his father’s approval. His father has never spoken to him this way before. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get to hear these things again, these things that he has craved desperately for his father to tell him his whole life. He doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and ruin his future chances of a repeat.
He doesn’t break down. He leans hard into his dad but he can’t quite bring himself to collapse into his arms the way he would have been able to with Bobby, the way he has been able to with Tommy and Eddie. It’s an unpracticed, awkward fit. Still, it’s the first time that Buck has ever felt like his dad is there for him—really, truly, actually there for him and wants to be. It’s the first time that his dad has opened up to him. He doesn’t know what to do with that yet. There’s too much history, too many times when Buck needed to be seen by his dad and he looked right through him instead. The trust will take time to build up between them.
But it feels good that his dad sees him now, that he’s choosing to show up for him. It feels good that his dad has a comforting arm around him and respects Bobby’s place in his life. It settles something in Buck that he didn’t know had been roiling. He wonders if his earlier panic was caused, at least partially, by the fear of grieving too much for another father in front of his own. But Buck can relax now, and he does.
“I’m ready to go back in,” Buck says after another minute. He’s breathing evenly and his thoughts are running at a normal speed again. “I’m feeling a lot better. Thank you for… just thank you.”
“Anytime. I mean it. I’m sorry it took me this long.”
“Hey, you’re, uh, you’re trying now,” Buck says, offering a smile. His father smiles back.
It’s not forgiveness, but it is an acknowledgement. Buck may never grant his parents full forgiveness, but they are trying, and they are getting better. Buck can see that. Buck appreciates that more than he could say. Whatever therapy they’re going to is working, at least for his dad. Despite his grief, Buck feels a weight lifted off his shoulders. His dad loves him.
And anyway, it’s not like Buck’s relationship with Bobby was always perfect. They had their days. Bobby fired him, threw him against a wall, berated him, and blocked him from coming back to work after his blood clot. Bobby changed Buck’s life immeasurably for the better, but the other stuff was there, too, sitting side-by-side with the good. As much as Buck looked up to him, Bobby was a flawed man. It would be disrespectful to the work that Bobby put into his own self-improvement to pretend that he wasn’t. He was no saint, and his past was haunted by more ghosts than Buck will probably ever know. But he tried, and he got better, and he showed up when Buck needed him. What more could Buck have ever asked for?
They walk back inside. Phillip claps Buck on the shoulder one more time before asking Margaret, Maddie, and Chim if there’s anything he can do to help with dinner. Buck appreciates the breathing room. His world has been tilted again, and even if it was for the better this time, it’s still a little jarring. He needs to find a moment of stability.
From his seat at the dining room table where Jee is painting his nails, Tommy’s head snaps up. He pulls his eyebrows together and nods at Buck: a silent Are you okay? Buck nods back. He is. He shakes himself off, grabs two beers out of the fridge—the pretentious kind that Tommy has him hooked on—and makes his way over to the dining room.
“What is going on over here?” Buck asks with a big smile on his face. It’s only a little bit forced. The way that Tommy and Jee get along like a house on fire always fills Buck’s stomach with joy. They say that kids are good judges of character, and Jee is obsessed with Tommy. Buck understands the feeling.
“I’m making Tommy pretty!” Jee exclaims.
“Oh, wow, yes you are!” Buck lies. Jee is not keeping the polish on Tommy's nails, not even close. Almost the entire tip of each of Tommy’s big fingers has been smeared dark blue.
Buck and Tommy exchange an amused, indulgent smile.
Jee is smiling too: big and excited. “You’re next, Uncle Buck!”
“Oh, you don't think your Uncle Buck is already pretty enough?” Tommy winks up at Buck.
Buck feels his face heat up and he ducks his head. The smile on his face isn’t forced anymore.
Jee looks at Buck seriously, assessing him. “No,” she says with a shrug. “He could be prettier.”
Eyebrows up, Tommy hits Buck with a bitchy, playful look. It reminds Buck of the one Tommy gave him at Chimney’s bachelor party, when he and Eddie couldn’t decide who was dressed as which Miami Vice character.
“Oof. Tough break, kid. But you heard the lady.” Tommy nods towards the box of nail polish bottles. “Pick your color and get ready to be gorgeous.”
Buck pulls out a green but Jee shakes her head. “No! Has to be red like a firetruck.”
“Oh, of course. My bad, I should’ve known that.” Buck barely keeps the laugh out of his voice.
“Rookie mistake,” Tommy assures him.
Buck sits down next to Tommy and bumps his shoulder. Tommy bumps back and it feels like solid ground, like coming home. Jee yells about how they’re messing her up and orders Tommy to stay still, so Buck tips a sip of Tommy’s beer into his mouth for him. Tommy swallows and then smiles at him, eyes soft and sparkling, and it makes Buck feel fuzzy, happy, warm. It makes him feel safe. He leans his head on Tommy’s shoulder while he waits his turn to have the entire tips of his fingers painted. Tommy turns to press a brief, tender kiss into Buck’s hair.
They need to talk, Buck knows. He wants to lean on Tommy for the rest of his life, and he wants Tommy to know that and to lean back on him, too. He wants Tommy to understand just how much he means to Buck, and he doesn’t think that Tommy will run when Buck tries to tell him this time. He has planted himself solidly in Buck’s life when he didn't have to. Buck thinks that Tommy wants this just as much as he does.
“What about Grandpa?” Phillip asks, sitting down across from them with a glass of red wine.
Jee looks at him for a long moment, then declares, “Blue.”
“Blue, alright, just like Tommy. I’m in good company, huh?” Phillip smiles and raises his glass in Tommy’s direction. Tommy nods in approval.
To say that Buck is surprised would be an understatement. Here is his no-nonsense father volunteering to have his nails painted. Here is his father, with a smile it looks like he means, sitting down with Buck and his maybe-boyfriend; no criticisms, no scolding, no looking through Buck like he doesn’t exist. He’s present, he’s attentive, and he’s choosing to partake in Buck’s life. He wants to.
This is what Buck’s life will be like going forward, if he’s lucky. This is what his family will look like. His relationship with his parents will continue to improve, and bit by bit that blank space where his knowledge of his parents should be will be filled in and fleshed out by memories, characters, and shared pain, shared joy. Someday, he will be able to mouth along to his parents’ stories. This thing between them will never be perfect, but it will be better. Maybe next time, Buck will be a little less surprised when his father pays attention to him.
Soon, there will be a new addition to this family: a baby boy. He won’t replace Bobby—though, if Hen started a pool, Buck would bet real money that the kid’s middle name will be Robert. Instead, this baby will exist alongside Bobby’s absence, as they all do, and even still he will benefit from Bobby’s influence on his life, as they all do. This baby will have a father who is alive to love him because of Bobby. That life—both of those lives—are what they should focus on, not the loss. To raise a child in the bleeding, unhealed void of another well-loved person does not end well for anyone involved. Buck can attest to that firsthand.
Life goes on and it changes as it does. Life goes on and good things can come from those changes, even when the changes themselves are bad. It’s not fair and it doesn’t make sense, but here it is. Here Buck is.
If Buck could go back in time and tell his 26-year-old self—slutty Buck 1.0 who was drowning in daddy and abandonment issues, desperate for anyone to pay him any kind of positive attention—what his life would look like at 33, he’s not sure that his younger self would believe him. His life now would be unrecognizable to the man he was then. Some things are better, some things are worse, and some things are neither, but everything is different. Bobby may be gone, but his fingerprints are all over Buck’s life, having molded and shaped it into this beautiful thing that Buck sees in front of him now.
If Buck could go back in time and tell his 16 year-old self—angry and petulant and lonely, acting out and getting hurt on purpose just to get his parents to look at him—that one day his dad would, unprompted, choose to comfort him and say that he loves him, he’s sure that his younger self would laugh. But that’s what happened today. That’s what his dad’s eyes continue to say as he watches Jee paint Buck’s nails, as he jokes with Tommy, as he asks about their jobs with real interest.
If Buck could tell his younger self that one day—through the strangest of circumstances and from sources he would never have thought to check—he would be happy, he’s not sure that his younger self would believe him about that, either. But he is. He is happy. He feels Bobby’s loss like a hole in his chest and he probably always will, but in this moment, Buck feels a bone-deep satisfaction with his life. There are so many good things in his life right now; so many people who love him for who he is, for who he has become, and there is so much to look forward to. He knows that’s what Bobby would want him to focus on. He knows that’s the best way to honor everything that Bobby did for him.
So he leans against the man who has held him together with gentle hands these past few weeks, he looks at his dad through new, better informed eyes, he smiles at his niece when she shows off her clumsy handiwork, he smells the delicious food that his mother and sister and brother-in-law are cooking for dinner, and he’s grateful for all of it. He’s grateful for everything that Bobby gave him.